By Bill Heaney
Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP has today revealed that Scotland is losing hundreds of GPs every year to early retirement, despite people struggling to see their GP all across the country.
A freedom of information request submitted by the Scottish Liberal Democrats to the Scottish Public Pensions Authority revealed that of the 1,183 GPs who have taken their pension since 2020, just 25 waited until the state pension age (SPA) to do so.
It comes as the most recent General Practice Workforce Survey 2024 found a sharp fall in the number of GPs across Scotland, with the rate of sickness absences up 15% from 2023.
Mr Cole-Hamilton, right, said: “When so many GPs are retiring early, it’s little wonder people are struggling to get an appointment, with some phoning their surgeries hundreds of times a day and often getting nowhere.
“Right now, GPs feel burnt out, overwhelmed and under immense pressure. There’s no real incentive for them to stay and if the chance comes to leave, they’re keen to take it.
“Scottish Liberal Democrats have repeatedly urged SNP ministers to address the crisis in primary care, so I am pleased that our efforts have secured £14 million more for general practice.
“Now, the Scottish Government must ensure this money is spent on measures that will help, such as recruiting specialists in pharmacy, physiotherapy and mental health to work alongside GPs. That’s how we can ease their workloads, make it easier for them to see patients and get more people swift access to the local health care they need.”
You can find the results of the 2024 General Practice Workforce Survey here
In the recent Scottish Budget talks, Liberal Democrats secured an additional £14 million to fund local health care and make it easier to see a GP.
And will they be replaced or will it be another skill shortage?
Well I think we already all too clearly know the answer to that. We do not educate and train enough doctors, or for that matter many, many others needed to support our society.
Look around you. We are a country in decline. The sense of entitlement, to a certain standard of living, to social services such as health and to so much more is baked in. But for a society to have that it needs to produce, and produce is what we don’t do.
Look at our own home patch. Look at the school outcomes. They are not good. For far too many education is not a priority.
Someone once said education was a route out of poverty. They of course were right. Sadly too many here don’t understand that message.
There was some 25 years ago a great film called “once were warrior” and it was about the urban dessert that was the indigenous Maori. An indigenous racial grouping with low education low to no skills, ultra high unemployment, huge social problems- a people in decline.
Are we that people as we bemoan the lack of doctors, nurses, technologists and more?
Maybe we are. Decline does seem so extant and doctors retiring with not enough replacements coming through is just another example of that decline.